1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a USB electrical connector, particularly to a USB receptacle electric connector which has a dielectric housing receiving a number of contacts and an electromagnetic shielding/grounding shell mounted in the housing between the contacts and an outer wall of the housing.
2. The Prior Art
USB electrical connectors have been recently developed to replace a variety of I/O computer connectors for connection with various peripheral devices, for example, a mouse, keyboard, printer and scanner. A conventional USB electrical connector has a housing, a number of contacts mounted to the housing, and an electromagnetic shielding/grounding shell mounted to an outer face of the housing.
Such conventional USB connectors are disclosed in Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 77208107, 84213585, 84213586, 85210940 and 85210940.
To mount the shielding/grounding shell to the outer face of the housing, the shell must have a surface area larger than that of the outer face of the housing. Since the metal shell is more expensive to manufacture than the plastic housing, reduction of the surface area (and therefore the volume provided that the thickness is the same) of the shell will lower the manufacturing cost of the connector.
Furthermore, the shielding/grounding shells of the above mentioned prior art USB connectors cannot be easily mounted to the housing, and a front end of the shell may interfere with the removal of a mating connector from the connector.
Hence, there is a need for a USB electric connector to eliminate the above-mentioned defects of current USB electric connectors.